The Museum of Modern Art For Immediate Release October 1986
ARTHUR PENN, October 20, pages 1 and 2
FILM CLASSICS FROM NEW YORK, October 23 and 28, pages 3 and 4
DIRECTORS GUILD OF AMERICA: FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY TRIBUTE- A SALUTE TO ARTHUR PENN October 20
A poignant observer of the American social landscape since the fifties, film director Arthur Penn will be honored by The Museum of Modern Art on Monday,
October 20, at 6:00 p.m. Mr. Penn will present his amusing and critical account of the late sixties counterculture, Alice's Restaurant (1969), as part of the ongoing DIRECTORS GUILD OF AMERICA: FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY TRIBUTE.
Based on a song by Arlo Guthrie, Alice's Restaurant stars Guthrie, Pat Quinn, and James Broderick. The film is set in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where Guthrie is staying with Alice and her friends in an old church building. He succeeds in escaping the draft on account of a previous criminal offense, littering on
Thanksgiving Day.
Mr. Penn has worked in an unusually broad range of genres and styles. He began his career as an actor and stage director and directed for television in the fifties. In his feature films The Left-Handed Gun (1958), Bonnie and Clyde
(1967), Little Big Man (1970), and The Missouri Breaks (1976), he transformed the traditional western and gangster film. The 1975 Night Moves is an hommage to the film noir that ends in disillusion and tragedy. Mr. Penn's recent
The Target (1985) is a spy thriller replete with action, starring Gene Hackman, who has played in several of Mr. Penn's films. Among his other films are
The Miracle Worker (1962), the highly emotional account of Helen Keller's relationship with her teacher, and Four Friends (1982), from a screenplay by
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Steve Tesich, about the rites of passage and bonding of a group of friends in the sixties.
This event is the ninth of the monthly tributes to distinguished members of the Directors Guild of America on the occasion of its fiftieth anniversary. The tributes are held monthly in the Museum's Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 1 and continue through January 1987. On November 17 Elaine May will be honored, and her film Mi key and Nicky (1976) will be screened. Other directors who have been honored include Joseph Mankiewicz, Robert Wise, and Martin Scorsese.
The DIRECTORS GUILD OF AMERICA: FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY TRIBUTE has been organized by Stephen Harvey, assistant curator, and Adrienne Mancia, curator,
Department of Film, with the collaboration of George Wallach, Director of Special
Programs, Directors Guild of America.
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FILM CLASSICS FROM NEW YORK October 23 and 28
To celebrate New York City's ninety years of filmmaking and the fiftieth anniversary of the Directors Guild of America, the Mayor's Office of Film,
Theatre and Broadcasting joins The Museum of Modern Art in presenting FILM
CLASSICS FROM NEW YORK. The exhibition comprises seven feature films made between 1922 and 1930 in New York City studios and on location in the city and the surrounding area. Screenings take place on Thursday, October 23, and
Tuesday, October 28, in the Museum's Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters.
Silent features in FILM CLASSICS FROM NEW YORK include the comedy Speedy
(1928), a Harold Lloyd vehicle; Allan Dwan's 1924 drama Manhandled, starring
Gloria Swanson; Monsieur Beaucaire (1924), a period piece with Rudolph
Valentino; D.W. Griffith's epic of the French Revolution, the 1922 Orphans of the Storm, starring Lillian and Dorothy Gish; and an early comedy with Louise
Brooks, Love 'Em and Leave 'Em (1926). The two sound features in the exhibition are Rouben Mamoulian's Applause (1929), an experiment with a highly mobile camera, starring Helen Morgan, and the elegantly directed 1930 Royal Family of Broadway, by George Cukor and Cyril Gardner, with Ina Claire and Fredric March. A complete schedule follows.
In conjunction with FILM CLASSICS FROM NEW YORK at the Museum is ENCORE!, a retrospective of more contemporary features shot in New York studios or on New York locations, to be held from October 20-31 at the Mark Goodson Theater, 2 Columbus
Circle, New York. This exhibition includes such films as Rosemary's Baby (1968) and Wolfen (1981). ENCORE! is sponsored by the Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcasting. For information about this exhibition, contact Bruce Feinberg,
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FILM CLASSICS FROM NEW YORK has been organized by Anne Morra, curatorial assistant, and Jon Gartenberg, assistant curator in the Museum's Department of
Film, with the collaboration of Patricia Scott, director, and Roberta Freedman, assistant director for film development in the Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcasting.
Schedule
Thursday, October 23 3:00 p.m. (Titus 2): Speedy. 1928. Ted Wilde. With Harold Lloyd, Ann Christy, Bert Woodruff. 62 min./ Manhandled. 1924. Allan Dwan. With Gloria Swanson, Tom More, Lilyan Tashman. 77 min. 6:00 p.m. (Titus 2): Monsieur Beaucaire. 1924. Sidney Olcott. With Rudolph Valentino, Bebe Daniels. 106 min.
Tuesday, October 28 12:00 p.m. (Titus 1): Orphans of the Storm. 1922. D.W. Griffith. With Lillian Gish, Dorothy Gish. 126 min. 2:30 p.m. (Titus 1): Love 'Em and Leave 'Em. 1926. Frank Tuttle. With Louise Brooks, Evelyn Brent. 62 min./ Applause. 1929. Rouben Mamoulian. With Helen Morgan, Joan Peters. 77 min. 6:00 p.m. (Titus 1): Royal Family of Broadway. 1930. George Cukor and Cyril Gardner. With Ina Claire, Fredric March. 68 min.
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For further press information and photographic materials, contact Howard Feinstein, film press representative, The Museum of Modern Art, 212/708-9752.